AA Puppy Behaviour - Please Help

Comments

• BradA1878

  July 2010 edited November -1

  "i.e. when it is bedtime and I ask him to come inside he will not come to me but then when I pick him up to bring him inside he reacts by wriggling and trying to bite my arms/clothes/hair quite nastily (any other time he is quite happy to be held)"
  >> I would not go and physically bring him inside, instead make coming to you when you call him a happy thing - use treats to lure him in. When you ask him to come in and he is not listening to you, simple offer him a treat. The first time you do this you may need to walk over to him and let him smell that you have a treat. Doing this circumvents all of the other issues that comes with you picking him up (biting & wiggling).
  
  "He does bite quite frequently which is something I am trying to correct and already has a tendency to try and barge his way through a door if I am trying to close it after myself to keep him the other side and then we end up in a battle of wills to try and get the door closed...with me only winning by either distracting him or because at the moment I am the stronger but obviously this will not be the case for long!"
  >> Akita are mouthy puppies, I'd even say they are mouthy adults too. When he starts to mouth you I would walk away and ignore him - this takes you (the reward) away from him when he bites - the "correction" becomes the removal of what he wants (your attention). You can also start teaching him some basic manners, like sitting for attention.
  
  "I am due to start puppy classes with him this wknd and please know that I am not a soft person by any means as I too am very assertive but am mistaking this for just normal puppy behaviour or is he just not bonding with me or respecting me and am I setting myself up for serious problems in the future? And does anyone have any suggestions for me as to what I can try and do?"
  >> Puppy class will really help - good for you!
  
  In regards to being "soft" or "assertive" in your personality, don't worry about that, you earn a dog's respect with brains, not brawn.
  
  In my experience with Akita (I have had 4), and with our Ovcharka, I would recommend you not try to physically control your dog - especially an Akita. Our Akita become 1000x heavier than they really are if we ever try to physically move them. Lure them with a treat or "happy talk" works a lot better, and your dog will respect you more for it.
  
  Your pup sounds like he could use some impulse control (something I am super familiar with from owning our CC and FSM), you may want to read about the "Nothing In Life is Free" concept and put it to work in your home: http://www.dogstardaily.com/blogs/nothing-life-free
  
  I hope this helped!
  
  ----
• TheWalrus

  July 2010 edited November -1

  Excellent input from Brad. I would like to jump on the bandwagon and say don't MAKE your pup do things you want it to. It will come back to haunt you later (ie catching them, picking them up to get them to come inside after they won't listen to you, battling with them at doorways).
  
  Teaching a pup it's fun or rewarding to do what you want it to do works much better long term. It'll save you headaches in the end. When you have a full grown AA refusing to do what you want, it will be no fun for you.
• Akita_Lover_UK

  July 2010 edited November -1

  Many thanks for both of your comments, I can definately see the sense behind what you are saying and after trying this for the past couple of days I can definately see a difference in him and I feel so much more relaxed too.
  
  Thanks again
• BradA1878

  July 2010 edited November -1

  Awesome! I'm glad it helped you. ) Keep us posted how things go!
• shibamistress

  July 2010 edited November -1

  You got great advice here, which I am filing away as a reminder for me too....looks like I'll have a new AA in less that two weeks!
  
  Sounds like he's a pretty normal puppy...I remember the Akita pup I had years and years ago as being mouthy, and she was a bit as an adult too, though she'd learned very good bite inhibition, so she was gentle on the mouthing. My male Shiba was a fiend with the biting too. Anyway, good luck and keep us posted on your progress, too.
• ramps

  August 2010

  sounds like he is trying to be the dominant one.
  My pup was exactly the same and he had to learn that using his mouth is unacceptable my puppy use to get really excited when he first came inside and get really mouthy so i started to bring him inside on the lead and sit him don next to me with the end of the lead under my foot so he couldn't run away and of course he would try to bite my foot so i would tell him no in a stern voice and redirect his biting onto a chew toy then if he bit my foot again i would shorten the lead and this would continue till eventually had no lead to move around and he was laying on the floor level with my foot and he soon realised that i was in control and the only way he could move was if he chewed his toy rather then me after a few sessions he no longer mouthes me at all i know a lot of people would not not agree with my method but think about it a puppys mother places her paw on the puppy when it bites and holds him there until he submits and behaves i think my technique mimics this and works extremely well with a dominant male puppy.
  I tried the time out method to start with and it did not work i use it now and it works but when the puppy hasn't bonded with you and doesn't know his place in the family pack IMO it's a ineffective technique .
• ramps

  August 2010

  Also i forgot to mention i had my puppy permanently leashed with me 24/7 for 6 days so he could learn the rules of the house as for letting him play in the garden for free why not put him on the leash and be patient until he goes to the toilet then let him off lead for a run around as a reward and when he comes inside with out being picked up its treat time.
• shibamistress

  August 2010

  Well, it's not a method I'd use on my dog, and I have to disagree with other dogs holding the pup down. What I see is the dog warning that the bite is not acceptable (if it is too hard) through sounds (growling, yelping) and then often walking away.
  
  And I don't believe that mouthing has anything to do with being dominant, but I won't go into all of that--we've had plenty of discussions on this forum debunking the whole idea of dominance. But in the puppy play, it's about just that--play. The pup is playing, and he mouths and bites because that's how puppies play. He has to learn either not to put his mouth on people at all, if that's what the owner wants, or he needs to learn bite inhibition. It's a great idea to distract him with an acceptable thing to chew on (toy, what have you) but I don't see the purpose of holding him down with the leash....seems to me what would be more effective (and less aversive) is to simply walk away from him, so he learns that biting means play time stops.
  
  Seems to work well on my pup anyway, though admittedly he's soft in temperment and has a pretty soft mouth too.
• violet_in_seville

  August 2010

  Actually, from what I understand, teaching bite inhibition first (and letting them be a little mouthy when young) and then teaching them not to bite is the way to go. Our trainer explained it to us this way: biting is a pretty natural reaction for a dog when scared, threatened, however in an unfamiliar or scary situation - say after an accident and they are at the vet - they may be in pain and not know what is going on and may bite (quite naturally) in fear. if you have taught bite inhibition, they will not bite with full force, but if not, a dog that is normally sweet and even tempered and doesn't bite can do a great deal of damage. It was just what my trainer had seen so they encouraged us to teach bite inhibition first and teach our pups to have a soft mouth, and then work on the acceptability of biting. Our trainer thought that mouthiness up to about the four month period was acceptable as this was the timeframe when you were teaching your pup about bite inhibition. After four months was when you should start training them to not bite in the first place.
  
  Violet, while being very calm, and relatively mild-tempered for a shiba, was also in some ways very hard to train. She never ever had puppy ADD (unless of course it was while we were trying to get her to choose a potty spot while it was raining) and because she was so calm and hyper focused, teaching her things was a breeze. On the other hand dissuading her from things she wanted to do was very difficult because redirection was so hard. At least for us, aversive tactics, or even much of the negative punishment tactics were not effective. We had to make the alternative we were presenting much more enticing than the thing on which Violet was currently focused because of the intensity of her focus.
  
  How is the training going now btw?